San Francisco Iraq War Protest Fizzles, "Peace Movement" Essentially Dead
March 19, 2008 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Five years ago hopes must have been high among members of international communist solidarity movement as they organized a series of massive demonstrations coinciding with the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The size of those gatherings must have convinced many that the United States was on the verge of being defeated domestically by this band of lefties even before it could topple Saddam.
In San Francisco - where in a brief three day period during 2003, thousands were arrested - less than 2,000 were in attendance at the most highly publicized event today, a Civic Center rally coordinated by International ANSWER, the Stalinist group responsible for organizing the largest demonstrations over the past 5 years.
The last time we covered one of these events, we spent much time running down the event organizer, International A.N.S.W.E.R., a hard left Stalinist group that they would have made Kruschev proud, so not wishing to be redundant, let's rely upon a more moderate leftist, David Corn [Nation magazine] to charaterize where they are coming from:
Regarding the extreme radical nature of International A.N.S.W.E.R., David Corn, certainly no friend of the right wrote in a 2002 essay, "The odd and troubling origins of today's anti-war movement."
"...This was no accident, for the demonstration was essentially organized by the Workers World Party, a small political sect that years ago split from the Socialist Workers Party to support the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. The party advocates socialist revolution and abolishing private property. It is a fan of Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba, and it hails North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il for preserving his country's "socialist system," which, according to the party's newspaper, has kept North Korea "from falling under the sway of the transnational banks and corporations that dictate to most of the world." The WWP has campaigned against the war-crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. A recent Workers World editorial declared, "Iraq has done absolutely nothing wrong."
Officially, the organizer of the Washington demonstration was International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism). But ANSWER is run by WWP activists, to such an extent that it seems fair to dub it a WWP front. Several key ANSWER officials, including spokesperson Brian Becker, are WWP members. Many local offices for ANSWER's protest were housed in WWP offices. Earlier this year, when ANSWER conducted a press briefing, at least five of the 13 speakers were WWP activists. They were each identified, though, in other ways, including as members of the International Action Center..."
As we have noted previously, the tenor of all of these rallys over that period of time has been hard-left/socialist/Marxist, pro-Che Guevara, free Mumia, down with the patriarchy, death to Israel.
Of course that angle is never covered in the local major media, who are guily of psychologically collaborating with the enemies of democracy, presenting these events as innocent peace protests, never broadcasting the vitriolic speeches or presenting the omnipresent insurrectionary propaganda.
This evening, the speeches were dominated, as they have been in the past, by a coterie of very angry, near hysterical women, among them outraged "Palestinians," disgraced nutcase politicians and revolutionary communists. Comic relief was provided by a tongue tied Public Radio personality and other rambling malcontents.
Given the rapid meltdown of the Democrat party over the last month or so, the bitter infighting, racial/gender turmoil and internecine rage, one has to conclude that the left's strategy of stoking hate out of all proportions against the Bush administration and war on terror has backfired spectacularly. The recriminations and festering resentment resulting from its failure to bring the Bush foreign policy crashing down upon itself has produced in the left a self-consuming monster that now can not easily be contained. One of the hallmarks of this is hopelessness and resignation, something in clear focus in San Francisco today where this tiny crowd was dwarfed by a factor of at least 30 only 5 short years ago when this effort was commenced by these thugs.
Bury this movement, it's dead.
Screaming shrew California State Senator Carol Migden. Not sure if she was just having her typical bad day or if the just announced $350,000 fine against her by the California Fair Political Practices Commission, the largest penalty ever levied against a candidate in the State, had her panties in a bunch. In any regard she was not happy when this writer querried her, as she left the stage, about how she was going to pay it and wether being a crook compromised her moral authority to lecture anyone about anything.
Israel not real popular here.
It takes a lefty village to ruin a kid.
Yeah dude, smoke on.
Not exacly the profile of a bicycle rider.
Nice theater, unclear on the imagery.
Anger everywhere, old, young and in between.
Gaza bound?
Sheik chic.
Cynthia McKinney, certifiable as always, working the rubber jihad circuit.
C'mon folks, these are free please pick them up.
Signs, signs, everywhere unwanted, unused signs.
They're not heavy, they're your unwanted signs.
Calisthenics for peace? Who were these two goofs?
Of course Bush/Cheney/Halliburton did it.
The boobsie twins
Revolutionary Communist Party Agitator.
More peaceful sentiments.
Clarifying the object of this fool's anger.
Cop killers are always popular at these events.
Even more signs.
A breath of sanity provided by these BART troubadors as we gratefully leave the event.
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